What Lessons Will Shapiro Take from the 2024 Election?

Gov. Josh Shapiro was almost selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate, and he wants to be president more than Phillies fans want to win the World Series. As he reflects on the 2024 election, what does he see? How will the lessons he draws affect his governorship, his budget, and how he leads the state?

Under Shapiro, Democrats lost every battle they fought in Pennsylvania

Donald Trump carried Pennsylvania, all of the “blue wall” states, and a majority of the popular vote. Incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris – with over $1 billion in campaign cash and the open support of most of legacy media and Hollywood – got less votes than her boss did in 2020.

Pennsylvania Republican Dave McCormick defeated 18-year incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. Every other statewide Republican won election, too. The GOP now holds more statewide offices than the Democrats for the first time in a generation.

Two Pennsylvania Republican challengers defeated Democratic incumbent members of Congress, while the top Republican incumbent targeted by Democrats – Scott Perry – survived.

The 50-seat Pennsylvania State Senate remains in the GOP’s possession at 28-22, with a new, 29-year-old member from Philadelphia, of all places. The Pennsylvania House stands at 102-101, Democrats. They owe this narrow advantage to spending nearly $5 million to hold on to a statehouse seat in rural Cambria County, a campaign in which they alleged that the 16-year incumbent Democratic member loved Donald Trump more than the Republican challenger.

Shapiro can’t keep quiet forever

We’re getting a sense of what Shapiro thinks he needs to do to become president. The normally gregarious, loquacious governor has lately been quieter than Calvin Coolidge. Thirteen days after the election, after the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Casey’s legal arguments – and the actions of Democratic county commissioners – were in violation of state law, Shapiro issued a written statement. He advised county officials to follow the law but did not ask Casey to concede.

Most national Democrat leaders and elected officials – and the ladies on The View – argue that Harris lost because most Americans are misinformed or are bigots or misogynists. (That would be news to the millions of blacks, Hispanics and Jewish voters who voted Republican, and the white voters who don’t see themselves as morally bankrupt, either.) Governor, is it the voters’ fault that Harris lost?

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have suggested that national Democrats forgot working-class people. Any thoughts, governor?

National activists and television commentators have suggested that the Democrats need to recommit to progressive policy positions. Maybe Democrats did a poor job of explaining why these polices are desirable. What do you think, governor?

What will the governor do next?

Most Pennsylvanians don’t care much about post-election analysis at this point. We’re more interested in what Shapiro will do next as governor. Several upcoming decisions will show where he stands. Will he appease the far-left activists in his party, or build bridges to the GOP? Will he refocus on working-class families?

His 2024 budget grew faster than inflation. Will he try to spend his way to reelection – and perhaps to the White House – or will he be more fiscally conservative in 2025?

Will 2025 be the year that Shapiro includes scholarships/family-tax-credits in his budget, or will he leave them out – again? In 2024, he cut cyber charter school funding. In the battle of students versus the teachers’ union, who will he support?

Pennsylvania’s business taxes are among the nation’s highest. Shapiro has pledged to cut them. Will he follow through?

Small businesses need regulatory reform and tax relief. Will Shapiro move beyond press conferences and embrace true regulatory relief – like “deemed approved” swift green-lighting of applications for licenses and permits? Will he go further to help start new businesses by eliminating licensing for entrepreneurs? Or will he try to buy off would-be entrepreneurs as Harris did, by offering “free” taxpayer money?

Green energy (pipe) dreams

Pennsylvania is home to more natural gas reserves than Saudi Arabia has in oil. Harris talked about banning fracking, then retracted that pledge, then seemed to backtrack again. What does Shapiro think? Will he enforce policies to get our low-cost, clean-burning natural gas out of the ground and into Pennsylvania homes and businesses? Will he support President-elect Trump’s plan to let Pennsylvanians sell liquified natural gas to our European allies, creating jobs and generating tax revenue, while keeping Russian gas out of Poland, Germany, and France?

Will he give up on his unnecessary, wasteful “green energy” dreams (“PRESS” and “PACER”) – using taxpayer money to subsidize unreliable energy sources, forcing Pennsylvanians to import Chinese materials and green energy products, and thus increasing the cost to heat our homes and operate our factories? Or will he choose common sense, realizing that his green initiative is too costly and creates a disincentive to use the almost-limitless supply of natural gas that lies beneath our feet?

Will he govern and run for reelection – and eventually for president – as the governor who rescued children from failing schools, helped small businesses grow, and unleashed Pennsylvania’s energy assets? Or, does he see himself as the savior – the superior messenger – of the same left-wing policies that led his party to defeat?

What message did Shapiro hear from the 2024 election results? Pennsylvanians want to know.

This article was originally published by RealClearPennsylvania and made available via RealClearWire.